lazy librarian against captivity

Oscar Wilde on Animal Rights

So, I just got back from spending an afternoon with my parents and, of course, the topic of me not eating animals came up. I gave the same old spiel about how eating meat means consuming the food and water used to feed that animal—food and water that could be given to humans, etc. etc. etc. I was trying to appeal to their human-centric egos.

Then my mother proceeded to say that “You would get a lot more with honey than you do with vinegar” because apparently I am “So negative” all the time.

This really offended me. Mainly because honey gets you nowhere. I’ve done that before. I’ve been the veghead that used to say “I don’t eat meat, but don’t worry, I don’t judge you if you do.” Even though it did/does offend me. But I got tired of being nice to people, because it wasn’t being true to myself. I was lying to the person too—basically telling them I was OK with their choices. It wasn’t changing anything. And the world DOES need to change.

I will no longer remain silent. What if American abolitionists had been silent and tolerated slavery because “It’s OK, I don’t like slavery, but you’re a good slave master!” That would only propagate the problem.

My feelings all boil down to something Oscar Wilde once said: “[T]he worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it…” –The Soul of Man Under Socialism

This wasn’t the first time a meat-eater had told me I wasn’t going to win a convert through the methods I was using. But I’m not in this to win converts, though that would be fantastic. I am in this to create a world where we do not need converts, where evil is not the norm or accepted so thoughtlessly.